As he let himself into his apartment he had firmly resolved to strictly ration his reading of comic strips and spy magazines. They were pretty strong meat if they weren’t handled with discretion.
The pleasantly furnished living room of his apartment was shrouded in late-afternoon semi-darkness and, when he closed and locked the door behind him, he switched on the lights.
The first thing he saw when he walked into the room was the little dark man whom he’d seen at the Club and at the bar a few minutes previously.
The dark little man was sitting in a straight chair, his hands resting on his knees. There was a faint smile on his face as he studied Reggie with calm, inscrutable eyes.
Reggie staggered back a few steps, clapping one hand hysterically to his forehead. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He had left this man at a bar in the Loop, but here he was now, sitting calmly and unconcernedly in the living room of his apartment.
“How did you get in here?” he gasped.
The dark little man stood up and smiled.
“Is that important?” he asked softly. “I am here and that is all that matters.”
Reggie swallowed loudly. There was something disturbing about the calm ambiguity of the man’s statement. He rubbed his damp palms together nervously.
“Can I get you a drink?” he blurted.
The dark little man shook his head slowly.
Reggie looked at him uneasily, noticing him in detail for the first time. He was small, hardly more than five feet two and he was slenderly built. His hair was jet black and it combed straight back from a high, delicate forehead. He wore severely tailored black clothes that fitted his small frame without a wrinkle. But his eyes dominated his entire personality, for they were a cold chilling black, lusterless and unwinking, as unrevealing as twin diamonds.
Reggie shivered slightly and looked wistfully toward the door of the apartment. He coughed nervously.
“Sorry to seem rude,” he said, laughing weakly, “but I’ve got to be toddling off now. It’s been nice — er — running into you. There are magazines on the table, liquor in the ice box, so just make yourself at home.”
He backed cautiously toward the door, smiling nervously.
“Don’t wait up for me,” he said. “I’ve—”
“Wait,” the dark little man said quietly, “I must talk with you.”
“Some other time,” Reggie said, feeling behind him for the door knob. “Awfully rushed just now. Sorry but—”
“Wait!” the little man said again, but this time his voice cracked like a whip. “Didn’t you hear me? I must talk with you?”
Reggie jumped at the cracking tone of the man’s voice. His hand jerked away from the door knob as if it were red hot.
“Oh, you want to talk to me?” he said foolishly. “I didn’t understand you.”
“My name,” the little man said, “is,” he paused and smiled cryptically, “Demise.”
“Glad to know you,” Reggie said. “My name is—”
“I know your name,” Mr. Demise said. “I know everything about you, Reginald Van Fiddler. I know things about you that you don’t know yourself.”
“Do you now?” Reggie said, becoming interested in spite of himself. “For instance?”
“I know that you are about to take a long trip,” Mr. Demise said.
“That’s not news,” Reggie said. “My draft board just classified me 1-A. I’ll be taking a long trip very shortly.”
“That is not the trip I am referring to,” Mr. Demise said. “You are going on a trip with me.”
Reggie blinked. He couldn’t think of anyone with whom he would rather not take a trip than this dark, sinister little man who called himself Mr. Demise. What did Demise mean, anyway?
“It’s nice of you, and all that,” he said, “but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it. My draft board might not like it.”
“They will understand,” Mr. Demise said.
“I don’t know about that,” Reggie said. He was beginning really to worry. There was something damnably inevitable about Mr. Demise’s calm statements. “They’re pretty ticklish about such things. I think we’d just better forget the whole idea.”
“That is impossible,” Mr. Demise said.
Reggie rubbed his moist palms on his trouser legs.
“Who are you?” he asked hesitantly. “Have you been following me around all day just to sell me on the idea of a trip? Are you from Cook’s tours?”
Mr. Demise smiled and shook his head.
“I am not interested in selling you the idea of a trip. I am simply telling you that you are going on a trip. I have already made all the arrangements. There is nothing that can possibly change them.”
“Where am I going?” Reggie asked. His voice was a whisper.
“With me,” Mr. Demise said.
“That’s no answer,” Reggie said, clutching at straws. “Who are you? Where are you going?”
Mr. Demise smiled again, very faintly. He walked slowly to the mantelpiece and plucked a rose from a vase. His hand closed gently over the flower as he turned to face Reggie.
“Perhaps this will answer your questions,” he said softly.
He opened his hand and dropped the flower to the floor at Reggie’s feet. Reggie’s eyes widened in sheer amazement.
Reggie looked at the seared rose, and then he knew!
For the soft glowing beauty of the flower was faded forever. It lay on the floor, a blackened, dead reminder of its former glory.
“It’s dead,” he said incredulously. “It withered at the touch of your hand.”
Mr. Demise nodded slowly and there was a wistful sadness in his face.
“All living things die at my touch,” he said. “For I am Death!”
“Death!” Reggie echoed. For an instant he stared blankly at Mr. Demise. “Death!” he repeated. “Why that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” He actually felt a sensation of relief in the realization that he’d been entertaining some loony instead of an Axis agent as he’d feared. “You’re off your trolley,” he said to Mr. Demise. “You’d better get moving before your keeper finds you. Death! What a gag!”
“I assure you it is not a gag,” Mr. Demise said slowly. “Your time is near at hand and I have been sent to take you to the land of Darkness.”
“Think again, chum,” Reggie said emphatically. “I’m not going to Harlem with you or anyone else and that’s final.”
“It is useless to protest,” Mr. Demise said. “Your destiny is sealed. You must come with me.”
“You are plain balmy,” Reggie said. “I’ve never heard a sillier yarn in my life. So you’re Death, are you?”
Mr. Demise nodded. “I am one of his agents.”
“Changing your story a little, aren’t you?” Reggie said triumphantly. “Well, since when has Death been announced by personal messengers? A man steps in front of a car. He’s killed. That’s all there is to it. There aren’t little black men standing on the curb pushing him into the street, are there? And they don’t come around a couple of hours in advance tipping him off, do they? No!”
“When a mortal passes over,” Mr. Demise said, “there is always an agent of Death present superintending the details. But he is not always visible to his charge.”
Reggie poured himself a drink and lit a cigarette.
“Well, thanks just the same,” he said, “but I don’t want any special effects when I pass over. If there’s a messenger of Death around I don’t want to see him. Just let him stay invisible. That’s the way I want it.”
Mr. Demise looked slightly pained. There was an embarrassed look on his normally expressionless features.
“Usually the agent of Death is invisible,” he said. “In fact his orders are to remain invisible under all circumstances.”
“Okay then,” Reggie said. “You’re breaking orders. Be a nice obedient chum now and fade away.”